MEXICO CITY – Investigators are working to identify 45 bodies found in a mass grave in the central Mexican state of Morelos, officials told EFE.

The bodies were found in the Pedro Amaro district of the city of Jojutla, where authorities had officially confirmed that 35 bodies were buried, a Morelos Attorney General’s Office spokesman told EFE on Monday.

The bodies will be reinterred in the Jardines del Recuerdo cemetery in Cuautla.

Some of the bodies had the types of tags used by crime scene investigators and their origin “will have to be determined by the specialists,” Morelos Attorney General Javier Perez said recently.

An investigation has been opened to determine where the bodies came from, Perez said.

State officials said in mid-2016 that they would examine the mass grave, where dozens of bodies were found in 2014.

A total of 119 bodies were found in two clandestine graves in Tetelcingo, another city in Morelos, last year.

Investigators are working to identify the bodies and “around 150 to 200 (DNA) samples have been taken” from relatives of missing people as part of the investigation, Perez said in a press conference on March 21.

The majority of the DNA samples are related to the case in Tetelcingo, the Morelos AG said.

A report released by the Autonomous State University of Morelos (UAEM) in August 2016 cited serious irregularities committed by authorities in handling the Tetelcingo case.

The bodies of six people reported missing have been found among the remains in Tetelcingo.

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